“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Today’s random word is know and comes from Men Undressed: Women Writers and the Male Sexual Experience. I’ve been pondering gender identity lately. There’s been a lot coming out about toxicmasculinity and the harm it causes. I’ve been noticing where this lives in my own heart and trying to make sense of my own feelings about being a woman in today’s world trying to love fully and raise daughters. Trying to make sense of how to be more trusting but also discerning with men.

I have tinkered with this piece for days. I’ve been really struggling with some issues related to gender identity, intimacy, anger about the senseless violence and pain, and the serious injustice that is going on in my country right now. It can drag a girl down, you know? When I told my daughter about my contempt for humanity the other day (it was fleeting but strong), she wisely put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Have you written about it yet?” In truth, I hadn’t because I knew that all that would come out was bile at that moment so I kept pouring my frustrations into this piece. I moved all the elements around many times. Left it on my desk. Came back to it. Used the tweezers on my eyebrows then put them back in the frame. Tinkering with identity. Thinking about how we’re all in drag in some way. So much pretending and posturing. So many walls built around ourselves to protect our most vulnerable, precious selves.

Then I talked with him for a long time. He wanted to understand. He asked a lot questions and did a lot listening. I felt much more peaceful. More raw and more real. It was like being cleansed in some glacial river. I felt clean and clear and so very human. Much less anxious.

This morning, I saw this poignant video with Junot Diaz this morning talking about the culture of silence that exists within the Patriarchal construct. Watch it, then keep reading below…

This idea that if we don’t talk about it, it’s not hurting us is so absurd and frankly I’m very weary of it. I’ve been the one to broach uncomfortable topics many times. This can make a person unpopular. I once had a lover say I was “toxic” because I spoke my truth. I didn’t speak it in a mean way, not shaming or blaming, just saying what was true for me and asking for what I needed. That hurt me deeply and shut my heart down for quite some time. I have since begun to realize that male fragility comes from this toxic masculine environment in which we’ve all been raised and, while I have compassion for that, I am also a strong advocate for personal responsibility. What we’re not imagining is that men are killing women because they won’t say yes and countless other people are being verbally and emotionally abused by this toxicity. That shit is real. David J. Schwartz does a great job of articulating what this is like for men in this article titled Masculinity is an Anxiety Disorder: Breaking Down the Nerd Box. He unpacks how the way our culture creates heirarchy by labeling what it means to “be a man” that ultimately hurts everyone. He owns his own part in this in a most glorious way that other men can follow:

But surely the Box, that construct built by others as much as by ourselves, that little prison we started building to protect ourselves from things we didn’t even understand yet, the invisible walls that keep us from being vulnerable enough to make connections and train us to see every approach as an assault—surely that can go. Surely we can recognize that as the source of so much of our tension and anxiety.

Because I’m open about my own process and fears, a woman recently asked me about navigating the world of online dating and asked what to do if she’s not interested in someone. She was worried about hurting their feelings. I said, “Ignore them. Their feelings are not your responsibility.” She told me how liberating that was. That it was a revolutionary idea to her.

Think about that. It’s revolutionary to realize that, as a woman, we don’t have to care for every, living thing. We can care for ourselves. Stake a claim for our own happiness. Think about our own interests and take action on our own behalf. We’re often afraid to do this because of the tremendous push back we get for doing so not just by men but by other women. I found when I saying yes when I meant no so many times, I ended up feeling shattered and resentful. By walking through the fire of learning how to say no or just not saying anything and dealing with the heat of that, I’ve learned to honor my own needs.

One thing I know for sure: I did not come here to live inside someone else’s construction of reality. I’ve learned to curate my life, to invite in what I wish for and what my heart most needs. Instead of accepting the bad behavior of pouty, petulant boys, I am inviting in the bold and vulnerable hearts of men who are doing their work and willing to walk alongside me while I do mine. That’s what discernment brings. That’s what love really is. It’s not a game of power. It’s a process of opening.

As Diaz says in the video, “Who doesn’t want intimacy? Who doesn’t want to connect with a partner profoundly?” I so agree with that and in order to do this, I’m realizing that I have to take responsibility for my own happiness so I can. That starts with not engaging in conversation where someone is arguing with my feelings while I’m listening deeply to theirs. I’ve had a lifetime of that. Somehow working on this Bricolage Project is helping me understand these things. Surrendering to the process and paying attention is showing me how much I have been operating from my wounded animal self and is helping me imagine something different and wow, am I liking it!

Today he said to me, “I don’t want to turn you away for any reason. Everything you offer is something I want.”

The word of the day is her randomly chosen from Rob Brezny‘s book Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia. Oh, how I wish I had the energy tonight to delve into her but alas, it has been a full day. I will say that I was at a poetry reading tonight at Columbia City Gallery. My friend, Daemond Arrindell was reading his soulful, permission-giving poetry which moved me to tears. The woman sitting next to me–a woman I had just met–looked at me tenderly and put her hand quietly on my arm. I cannot think of a more fitting example of what I think of when when I think of the word her. Compassion. Love. Kindness. Gentleness. Ferocity.

Also, when I think of her I think of being a mother and how hard it can be to be both a mother an artist. As I type this, my daughter keeps chatting with me and and my ex is texting me pictures to show her. I could say no. I could hole myself up but in truth, it’s just part of the experience. My life and my art are often inseparable and, at least in this moment, I’m okay with that. Apparently, other mothers have faced this. Austin Kleon wrote a post sharing a bunch of books on art and mothering. How fabulous!

All the great artists of the world slowly slowly start growing a quality of feminineness, grace, elegance, exquisiteness. A certain flavor of softness, relaxedness, calmness and quietness surrounds them. They are no longer feverish. What I am teaching here is really to turn the whole world feminine.

The randomly-chosen word of the day is open and comes from Slut Lullabies by Gina Frangello. I was working as an intern for Emergency Press at the time the book was published so I have a copy of it which still sits unread on my shelf. That will be remedied in the coming months of rain ahead.

The rain has been pouring down so urgently all day here in Seattle. I decided to start with that as the foundation of my piece today which is a video rather than a photo. Bricolage comes from the French verb bricoler which means “to tinker”. That is indeed how these pieces are created: Tinkering. For this one, I wrote the song and recorded the spoken word in Garageband and mixed everything in iMovie. The poem I’m reading is the one from day two. The guitar in the song was added for him. Because he’s a guitarist who also likes to tinker.

I think and write so much about freedom. These thoughts can become their own mobius-strip prison. To imagine that I might be the cage, not the bird (or likely both) intrigues me. Last night, I was telling him that I am like a wounded animal in love–skittish and fearful of comfort and domesticity because home never felt like the safe place. I told him I didn’t want to be put in a corral and taken away from my wild nature. He suggested a den as an alternative among equals. He described it as a “warm, dry place where you can rest and recouperate. And whenever you feel the urge, you can go out and hunt or howl at the moon.”

I like that idea much better than a cage of any sort. The energy is comforting but open.

Today’s randomly chosen word, beginnings, comes from the achingly beautiful book, Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan. I got the book for my daughter and ended up reading it. I’m so glad I did. It’s the kind of story that takes your heart out, squeezes it hard, heals it, and hands it back to you. I cannot more highly recommend it. On the cover of the book, it says, “If you’re lost, you might need to swim against the tide.” Wow, can I relate to that sentiment! The past many years of being a single mother, going to school, and making my way through the thicket of relationships, healing from childhood trauma, and losing my mother have made me feel very lost at times. Clarity comes in fits and spurts and often through art and writing.

The art today is 3-D. Except for the chalk, everything is three dimensional so I can see the shadow. After viewing the gorgeous Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse a couple of weeks ago, I have been pondering the nature of shadow and light a bit more both within and without. Today’s quote, from Leonardo da Vinci speaks to this:

The beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow.

That quote echoes what I have felt for a long time about shadow–long before I ever read Carl Jung‘s work–that we are animated by shadow. You learn that when you sketch. You feel it in your body when you allow it. Despite this knowing, I still carry so much judgement at times, especially towards myself. Judgement and the fears that come along with it can totally paralyze me in moving forwards at times so I’ve been mindfully moving through it. One of the ways I’ve done that is listening to Tara Brach‘s podcasts of late. She’s a wonderful teacher with a calm presence that I appreciate. The most recent one I listened to is Letting Go of Judgement in which she quotes Rainier Marie Rilke from Letters to a Young Poet:

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”

Finding the helpless parts of myself that want love is taking a lot of courage and fortitude. Listening to Ms. Brach’s encouragement to be present with what she calls “aversive judgement” and to look for the layers of vulnerability underneath it makes me realize that this layer is a conditioned response that has been trying to help me. She says, “It’s not our fault that we’re judging. It’s really deep in our evolutionary history to sense that something is wrong.” She calls it a “survival fear” that “mobilizes us for war”. This idea that we create an “other” that we need to defend against as a layer of programming–of armor–that we can mindfully learn to take off really resonates for me. I long to love the parts of myself and life that have been hidden underneath that armor.

The armor is too heavy and makes it hard to breathe and swim. I’ve been living with the intention to swim against that evolutionary tide and into a place that is more loving, a place that comes from higher mind. It takes consciousness. It takes an awareness of life as both three dimensional (shadow. immanence.) and ethereal (light. transcendence.) In his notebooks, da Vinci says, “The painter who draws merely by practice and by eye, without any reason, is like a mirror which copies every thing placed in front of it without being conscious of their existence.” So, too, with life.

Today’s word comes from the gorgeous book, Dreaming My Animal Selves by Hélène Cardona which, incidentally I never would have found without the magic of the internet. I’m so glad I did because it’s a glorious book of poetry. The word I chose randomly is whimsical! Yay!

I am not sure whimsy ever got squeezed out of me in my youth. I’m fortunate to have children and friends who help keep this alive in my heart. Something I love about my city is the whimsical things that are often waiting to be found. I remember being acquainted with the Toy-Box Trio at the Seattle Art Museum and fell just a little in love with their sound. It’s common to happen upon little art installations, fairy houses, or stacked rocks in local parks. It’s lovely to live in a world where such joy waits for me stumble upon it.

Today’s quote comes from Yoko Ono. It’s more of a directive but I was drawn to it because of the word whimsical. The book it comes from, Acorn, is filled with delightful prompts that can only enrich one’s life.

Wishing Tree at Carkeek Park

Make a wish. Write it down on a piece of paper.

Fold it and tie it around a branch of a Wish Tree.

Ask your friends to do the same.

Keep wishing until the branches are covered with wishes.

Finally, I can’t think of whimsy without thinking of my fabulous friend, Rob D’Arc who makes glorious puppets for the stage as well as puppets you can take home. You can also find him at the Pike Place Market selling his puppets. The holidays are coming…